


A Slight Trick of the Mind

by flibbertygigget



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Character Study, First Kiss, M/M, Suspected Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 20:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7859215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Either this was real, he loved Charles, or it was simply a trick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Slight Trick of the Mind

Erik Lehnsherr was not in love with Charles Xavier. He couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

He couldn’t be faulted for… caring for Charles, of course. It was only natural for him to enjoy the company of the man who had saved his life, who had pulled him from the ocean and convinced him, somehow, that he wasn’t alone. He couldn’t be faulted for becoming attached, and if that attachment was accompanied by the urge to kiss Charles’ perfect lips or run his hands over the ivory planes hidden by frumpy cardigans or…

Well. It didn’t matter. Erik Lehnsherr didn’t fall in love, not with a man. Especially not with a man like Charles, who was all light and joy and innocence, who was so full of love that he seemed to reel in everyone he met, and damn it Erik was caught, hook, line, and sinker.

It hurt to be bathed in Charles’ love and unable to respond in kind.

Sometimes, late at night, when the urge to touch, to kiss, became too overwhelming, Erik would wonder if this… longing he felt for Charles was even real. Erik had thought himself incapable of love, the capacity for any feeling besides hatred wrung out of him by Shaw, first, and then by long years of repressing every emotion he could in an attempt to reduce his weaknesses to the corpses he left in his wake. But now… either this was real, he loved Charles, or it was simply a trick. Erik’s mind flinched away from the second, more likely option. He didn’t want to imagine that Charles was capable of influencing him so completely. He wanted to believe that he was still able to feel this much, this purely.

One night, in the middle of their chess match, Erik finally got the courage to kiss his friend. It was then, Charles staring at him, wide-eyed and worshipping, that he decided that he didn’t care if his love was real or just a slight trick of the mind. He couldn’t imagine a world in which he gave up on this love.


End file.
